


Sleight of Hand

by Kizzywiggle



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bit of tragic stuff, Courtly Love, Drunken Confessions, Grand Romance, Look it's Varric so expect the drama, Melodrama, Other, Scams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8709094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizzywiggle/pseuds/Kizzywiggle
Summary: Born of a random pondering.
Varric may not be all he purports to be with the ladies...





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have taken shameless liberties with the Varric/Bianca storyline, and have done Bianca probably a great disservice...but I don't like her, so she deserves it...

Bull’s laugh - uninhibited, delighted and by-the-Maker loud - swelled out suddenly, seeming to fill the Herald’s Rest as he roared until tears ran from his one eye and down his scarred grey cheek. Bull drew in heaving gulps of air, howling, stamping and hooting, while beside him Varric cringed, anger tightening his normally open face into a knot of angry embarrassment.

“Will you _shut up_?” he demanded in a quiet growl, leaning across the bench to glare at the now-giggling Qunari. “It's not like I'm the only one, you, you… ah, _shit_ , Tiny!” Varric punctuated his words with a closed, hard punch to the meat of Bull’s shoulder, but he might as well have tickled the guy for all the notice he took.

Bull wiped his eye and sighed gustily.

“Come on, Varric, you had to know that'd take me by surprise? I _mean_ , Varric Tethras, rogue-about-town, liar, thief, novelist and ladies’ man, a-”

Varric cut Bull off by signalling Cabot for more ale and pinching Krem’s dish of the tavern’s nibbly things, to which Bull was hopelessly addicted. Bull pulled the dish closer and set to emptying it like the three dishes already scattered on the bench in front of him. He chewed and swallowed and chewed and Varric began to relax minutely (you couldn't ever _really_ lower your guard around Bull: his people reading skills were nothing short of phenomenal) until Bull suddenly grinned straight at him and said, “A virgin, then?” into one of those vast, loud silences that happened every so often, and every face in the tavern swivelled to regard the pair (Varric gave serious thought to cloaking before realising that was as good as a confession before eagerly gossipy witnesses), so he said coarsely “Well, she was until _I_ met her!” and laughed as loud as Bull then desperately swallowed his own drink.

Praise Andraste’s dimpled knees, it worked, and the noise rose again in the tavern as people's interest wandered away from the seriously pissed-off dwarf and still-chuckling Qunari.

Much later, the tavern had all but emptied and Varric found himself feeling warmly melancholy and fuzzily drunk. Bull had been dozing, but when Varric knocked over his empty tankard with a clunk he started awake with a gravelly “Hngh?” He peered at Varric then smiled, slow and evil. “So...You can’t just drop “I’m a virgin” into the conversation and then just leave it at that, can you?” He gestured vaguely, nearly taking off Varric’s head with a huge paw. Varric ducked and winced as the movement caused his head to throb.

“Not here. Too many, too many...peoples. Yes, people. Less’ go… somewhere. Somewhere else?” He pushed back from the bench and fell onto his backside with a curse. Weaving and muttering under his breath, Varric ambled over to retrieve Bianca from Cabot with inebriated gratitude, then turned, only to smack into Bull’s midriff. Bull chuckled again, then grabbed Varric chummily by his upper arm and towed him to the door, calling a farewell to Krem who was dozing in his usual chair. Bull continued to tow Varric once they reached the commons, then turned and led him up the stairs to the battlements. They nodded at the night sentry on patrol who glared back (Varric had fleeced her at Wicked Grace a few months back, and it seemed she had a long memory) and made their way to a darkened corner to talk.

The night air clawed into Varric’s sinuses, blowing away some of the alcoholic fog, and he felt the pleasant blanket of drunkenness lifting, revealing the hurt, anger and confusion beneath it. He gulped hard, forcing down the sudden, inexplicable temptation to cry. Bull eyed him knowingly. Even more than a little drunk, even newly declared Tal-Vashoth and still reeling himself, he was Ben-Hassrath to the tips of his horns, and Varric had the uncomfortable feeling he was as opaque as fine vellum, all his secrets there for the huge Qunari to see. He shuffled, uneasy, and took a deep breath.

“So...I suppose you know about Bianca?” He asked, then laughed and patted his ugly crossbow where she leaned against the wall. “Not _this_ Bianca, the other one. The _first_ one.”

Bull nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know. But maybe it’d help you to tell me again?”

Varric grinned sourly. He slid to the floor and leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely between his knees. He took a deep breath and sighed it out, went to speak, and sighed again. For a dwarf who made a living in more than one way by the use and manipulation of language, he found himself at a loss. He looked up, way up, at Bull and winced.

Bull lowered himself down to sit next to Varric on the cold stone. Varric wondered at the back of his mind how Bull wasn’t cold, with over half of his skin hanging out in the night breezes like that, then pulled his thoughts back in line. He tried again to speak, and again failed utterly.

“How ‘bout I go first?” Bull asked quietly. Varric quirked an eyebrow, then consented, intrigued.

With a grunt Bull settled back against the stone battlements, folding his arms behind his head, and began, his tone low and musical like a parody of a bard or minstrel.

“It was a long time ago, in Kirkwall. Varric, a dwarf with a fast and clever tongue, was looking for a dwarf with certain skills to help him in a certain way. His search led him to Bianca Davri, a smith so skilled she astounded our hero, and they formed a working relationship which quickly became something more. However, when you get too much clever in one place, bad things will inevitably happen, and Varric and Bianca found themselves on the Merchant Guild’s shit list, and she was dragged away to submit to a forced marriage while Varric was left to his own devices, with nothing but a butt-ugly crossbow to remember her by.” He looked at Varric steadily. “That about right?”

Varric wobbled his head in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Very broadly speaking, yes, it is.”

“But according to everyone - including you and Bianca - it was a mad and passionate, _highly physical_ love affair! Which leads me to wonder...Varric?”

“Oh…” Varric replied with a choked noise which he told himself wasn’t a sob, “You know…”

“No, I don’t. Tell me”

“Well, it was a little like an imperfect murder: we had means and motive, but the opportunity was never there. We’d find time to be together, there’d be...fumbling...and everything just short of actual sex, but we never had enough time to actually consummate things. At the time it felt romantic, like a grand tale or even a melodrama, and we were waiting for the perfect time to take the final step. I’d got it planned, you know,” Varric’s voice dropped ‘til he was almost whispering as he continued. “I’d book a room in one of the nicer taverns, somewhere a bit special. There would be good food, fine wine, maybe a game of cards or I’d tell her a risque story, and we’d take it slowly, get there when we were both so past ready and well into desperate. It would be… _magical_. Perfect. Worthy of her.”

Bull nodded. “Yeah, I get that. A quick fuck is all well and good, but sometimes, with some partners, you wanna make the effort to make it more than physical.”

“But I kept putting it off, waiting, thinking that when the time was right, I’d _know._ She didn’t say anything about wanting to take it further, although we were certainly getting more inventive when we were together, so it just carried on until it was too late.

“I don't know who Bianca had talked to, but her family got worried. She’d told them we were more than we were, then I heard a rumor of an insinuation of a hint that she was pregnant, and then... it… happened. We were forcibly separated, she was married to That Ass Vasca. By the time I could do anything about it, it was too late. She was gone.”

“Ah, shit,” Bull breathed quietly. You couldn’t write it, could you?”

Varric looked at him sharply, them smiled. “Well, _I_ could,” he said, “But you’ll find the critics are always complaining of my tendency to over-dramatise. Anyway...how do I explain it?”

“With words,” Bull said helpfully, and mock-ducked as Varric swiped at him.

“It was like, like...for the first little while afterwards, I couldn’t even _look_ at another woman. The hurt and fear and regrets ate at me. I don’t mind admitting I wallowed in my misery, drinking and fighting and generally behaving like an idiot. By the time I came out of it, she was gone and I couldn’t trace her. I sat down and poured it into the first instalment of _Swords and Shields_ and tried to manage the business as well as I could with what felt like my heart ripped out.” Varric laughed harshly, mocking himself. “Andraste’s tits, I was an ass, Bull, a total ass.”

“We’ve all been there,” Bull said. “Well, I haven’t, but I’m a special case. Krem loses his heart so often I’ve told him to keep it on a string to be on the safe side. You’re entitled to behave like an ass when you’re heart’s broken, you earned the right!” He reached out and clapped Varric on the shoulder, squeezing the muscle in the universal male gesture of solitude. Varric smiled weakly.

“Luckily, _Swords and Shields_ did undeservedly well, if not as well as _Hightown_ , and a copy of it must have gotten to Bianca, locked up in Ass Vasca’s damned fortress. I’d poured everything into it, all that beautiful, anguished courtly shit I was still feeling, and there were certain phrases and scenes in there that she must have recognised. Not too long after publication I was forwarded my ‘fan mail’ and in the not inconsiderable pile of letters was a message from _her_. She hadn’t signed it, of course, but I knew it was from her. She’d continued one of the romance scenes in the book after where I’d left off, and it had to be her, because she was the only other person in all Thedas who knew it’d really happened. I thought my heart would stop.” Varric trailed off and stared into nothingness, lost in his memories.

After a few minutes Bull coughed and prompted, “And…?”

Varric looked up, surprised. “And? And so I wrote back. Although our correspondence wasn’t frequent, it was there and it was enough. It ‘kept the flame alive’ to use another overtired phrase. It kept her alive in my heart, kept me hoping that one day she’d leave Vasca and I’d be there, ready.” He laughed, an unpleasant sound devoid of joy or mirth. “And then, without word or notice, she turns up _here_!”

“Must’ve been a shock,” Bull observed.

“Ha! That’s putting it mildly! For a second I wondered if I was asleep and actually dreaming for the first time!” Varric’s face lit up at the memory and then darkened. “BUt it wasn’t a dream, not even a lyrium dream, although I found myself wishing it was once I found out about the Red Lyrium and Bianca’s involvement.” He shook his head. “I just can’t believe she could be so by-the-Maker _stupid_ , Bull! I don't see how she could excuse or justify her actions, but still she tried! There wasn’t any real remorse, no sign that she really comprehends the scale or the impact of the Red Lyrium infection.”

There was another contemplative silence as they both tried to reconcile what they’d both seen in their frequent skirmishes with Red Templars against Bianca’s apparently unrepentant attitude. Varric spat to the side and swore viciously.

“If I thought my heart broke when her family married her off, took her away, it was _nothing_ to how I felt at that moment. Despite our time together in the past, despite our letters, despite her wit, her savvy, her sheer brilliance as a smith, despite all of that, I was looking at a stranger. Not only was she just callous about the lyrium smuggling, she’d just trampled on my memories, and my hopes for the future, however faint they may be.”

“So…?” Bull prompted.

“So what?”

“So, why are you still a virgin? _How_ are you still a virgin? There are tales the length and breadth of Thedas praising your skills as a lover! There are women _here_ who’ve turned me down after allegedly experiencing _you_! What’s that all about?” He stared at Varric hard, his one eye glinting in the weak moonlight.

Varric shifted uncomfortably.

“Well, that, uh...that’s a combination of my skills at foreplay and knowing the right words,” he admitted sheepishly. “Ladies of any race, any birth, _love_ foreplay, Bull, you should know that?” He looked up at the Qunari, who nodded, but still didn’t look convinced. Varric continued, “You don’t have to actually _have sex_ to have sex, do you?” At this Bull looked blank.

“Look,” Varric said, exasperated, “There’s a long journey from that first kiss to the final destination, and with an experienced tour guide you don’t always need to get there to _get there_.” Varric wasn't sure if Bull was being deliberately obtuse, but he was getting annoyed himself, so he almost-shouted, “Just because I’ve never got my cock wet, it doesn’t mean my hands and tongue stayed dry, you idiot!”

Bull’s look cleared with comprehension. “Oh,” he said slowly. “Oh… Oh!”

“Exactly!” replied Varric. “And I’m good with words, too, and most ladies like to be talked to in those situations, so really, I was onto a winner. In the back of my head, I guess I thought that I was...I don’t know, ‘saving myself’, that final act, for Bianca. For that _perfect day_ which I knew was coming, which had to come.”

Bull laughed, a roar which had the sentry jumping in alarm then turning to glare at them both.

“I can’t believe it!” Bull guffawed, “It’s a trick!”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Varric replied with quiet, still slightly-drunk, dignity. “I prefer to think of it as integrity and respect, however.”

“I’ll be!” Bull was still chuckling, shaking his massive head and slapping the stone beneath him. “I’ll be!”

Varric rose to his feet and shouldered Bianca with as much sobriety as he could muster, under the circumstances. “Well, I’m glad my tragic tale could brighten your night, my _dear_ Iron Bull, but I’ve been battered enough, and am off to seek my bed.”

“Well it won’t be anyone else’s!” Bull laughed, and was off again. Varric glared at him, chillier than an Orlesian dowager finding a rat in her boudoir and left, the Qunari’s laughter trailing him down the stairs.


End file.
